The wretched man called imploringly after him; but he closed the door, and summoning Mrs Barnes, begged her to look well after him, and to see that the nurse did all in her power to keep him calm, and to soothe him to rest.

But there came a time when during the fever fits she began to talk in a hoarse, broken voice, to play on the coverlet as if on her beloved little piano, and try to sing with a throat so swollen that there was no music left, a time when she did not know the familiar faces around her, but addressed them by wrong names, and called imploringly for her mother.

"I would rather have my tongue cut out than tell you," Lord Harford continues, half-ashamed, "only that I want you to know where your refuge is if he breaks your heart. Oh!" imploringly, "why will you not care for me who am ready to devote my life to you?